While it's being shaped as Shapiro's annual visit to spring training, the sides are expected to hold face-to-face discussions about the future of the Twins' MVP catcher.

In a slightly pessimistic note, Neal speaks of "indications that progress has slowed recently." But don't worry Twins fans, SI's Jon Heyman (Twitter) and ESPN's Buster Olney both speak of optimism about these talks. Neal still contends that no deadlines have been set. Yahoo's Jeff Passan reported on November 30th that Mauer "plans on ending contract negotiations if a deal isn't struck by the end of spring training."

Tom Tango of Inside The Book recently tackled Mauer's value in an ESPN article, and determined that somewhere between $145-176MM would be appropriate for eight years.